Well Met By Moonlight
by Alchemine
Summary: On Midsummer's Eve, Miss Hardbroom ventures out into the wood for a meeting that could prove dangerous. 2017 reboot fic, also featuring a character from A Midsummer Night's Dream.


Misty rain fell on the castle throughout the long summer day, floating endlessly down from a pale grey sky. As noon came and went, it began to worry Miss Hardbroom, who had plans for the evening and did not want to go to the effort of working a weather spell. It was one thing to summon up a bit of wind or lightning on command, and quite another to push an entire naturally occurring storm system out into the North Sea.

When a glimmer or two of weak sunlight finally began to show through the clouds, she was relieved, and said as much to Miss Cackle and Miss Bat over their afternoon tea.

"It's a Midsummer Eve miracle," Miss Bat said perkily. "Pass me the jam, Hecate, will you?"

Hecate passed the jam and watched Miss Bat pile it onto a scone until the pastry nearly crumbled under its weight.

"Perhaps you'd just like me to pour it directly into your mouth," she suggested.

Miss Bat gave her colleague the sweet, dotty-old-lady smile that was her preferred way of dismissing comments she couldn't be bothered with, and took a large, jammy bite of scone. A sticky blob escaped over the side and fell onto the green crushed-velvet bodice of her dress with a soft plop, and Miss Cackle banished it for her with a pointed finger while reaching for another slice of cherry cake.

Hecate wrinkled up her nose. "And on that note, I'll leave the pair of you to your gorging. Do save some for Dimity when she finally gets here. I'm told she had an accident with a volleyball net."

She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up, and Miss Cackle dropped the cake onto the plate, took a hurried gulp of her tea and got up too, following her deputy out of the Headmistress' study and into the shadows of the empty corridor.

"Hecate, about tonight-"

"What about it?"

"Well…" Miss Cackle peered at Hecate sternly over her spectacles, an effect somewhat spoilt by the fact that she had to crane her neck backward to do it. "I'm concerned for you, that's all. Perhaps you should let me come along."

"Isn't that what I usually say to you?"

"It is," Miss Cackle allowed.

"And you always tell me to stay behind, which is exactly what I'm going to say now. Really, Ada, there's nothing to worry about."

Miss Cackle shot her a long, warning look. "I wouldn't go that far. They're dangerous, Hecate. You know they are."

"Not if you deal with them the right way." She hesitated. "If anything, it's I who ought to be concerned for you. You haven't got the relationship with them-with him-that I have. Suppose you come with me and something goes wrong? I'd never forgive myself."

"I know you wouldn't." Miss Cackle said gently. "And I know we haven't any other way of getting what we need, or I wouldn't have you go at all. How is your supply holding up?"

"I scraped the bottom of the jar three days ago."

"Very well." The Headmistress sighed. "Only be careful, Hecate. It would break my heart if-"

"Don't say it." Hecate held up a warning hand. "Don't even think it. I'll be back before moonrise, Ada. I promise you."

The sun had gone behind the clouds again when she manifested in the wood, and it was dark and dripping under the canopy of trees, with occasional surprise showers when collected rainwater spilled from the upper branches. Hecate walked through it silently, as witches did. She would have liked to transport herself directly to her destination, but the sort of people she meant to meet with were annoyed by magic that did not belong to them, and despite what she had said to Ada, this was a risky enough business without adding to it.

After a bit she came to a small clearing where the treetops leant toward each other without quite touching, like lovers cursed never to be able to kiss. Underneath them the wet grass grew long and wild and untouched, and she had to wade through it, soaking the hem of her dress, to get to the centre. There, she knelt down and parted the grass with her hands, and at its roots found the stones, thirteen of them, which she had collected on another Midsummer's Eve long ago. They were white, each about the size and shape of a loaf of bread, and they were set in a circle just big enough for a witch to sit down in.

Hecate trampled the grass around the stones until they were visible-it would be best if the visitor she was hoping for saw them straight away-and then from a deep pocket in her cloak, she pulled out a collection of objects. She laid three of them neatly on the ground just outside the circle as if they were offerings, which was, in fact, exactly what they were: a cake from Ada's tea table, small and round with pure white icing like new-fallen snow; a tiny glass jar of golden honey; and a bunch of yellow flowers.

The fourth item was a sprig of rosemary, and that she rubbed between her fingers, releasing the sharp, nose-tingling scent that made her think of winter wreaths and food being cooked over roaring fires, before putting it back in her pocket for safekeeping. She took off her boots and stood barefoot on the sodden ground, and then she sat in the middle of the circle, on a chunk of overturned log that she'd also placed there years ago, and started the work of unpinning her hair and picking out the tightly pulled strands of plaits. She had just finished shaking the last locks loose when a gnarled little man stepped nimbly around an invisible wall and into the clearing.

"Well met, Robin Goodfellow," she said.

"Well met, witchling." The Puck grinned with mossy snaggle teeth. "I wondered when we might come together again, here in the wood."

He came closer and inspected Hecate's offerings. "What splendid gifts you've brought. All my favourites." One hand shot out and seized the honey jar, and the brown tip of his tongue darted out to lick its rim before he tucked it into his jacket. Next he snatched up the cake, nibbled around its edge with barely audible murmurs of delight, and squirreled that away too. Finally he picked up the flowers and breathed in their scent, eyes closed in what looked like ecstasy. They disappeared along with everything else, and then he put his legs apart and his hands behind his back-they were small, like the rest of him, but had more and longer fingers than one might expect-and regarded her.

"You've grown older since last I saw you," he observed.

"Please, no flattery," Hecate said dryly. "I could hardly help it. It's been ten summers since then, you know."

"Has it?"

"It has. And witches are long-lived, but we're not eternal."

"But you could be," said the Puck, and suddenly his voice was seductive, sweet and soporific, like the sound of bees humming on a sunny afternoon. "If you would only come away with me-"

"I told you no when I was a child," Hecate informed him, "and the answer hasn't changed, and it never will. I don't care to live forever, and I especially don't wish to give up my own powers to your queen. You know she would want them."

"Tis true, she would." The Puck sighed. "But what a shame nevertheless. You were such a pretty child, you would have been the jewel of our company. Eyes like a doe's, and hair as black as a raven's wing!" He leant forward, his upraised hand hovering just outside the boundary of the stone circle. "May I?"

"Only that and no more," Hecate said, and he reached out and pulled playfully at a loose lock of her hair, twining it round one impossibly long finger.

"Soft as ever," he mused. "I remember how I would weave flowers into it when we played together. I might have kept you for my own, witchling, and not given you over to the Queen at all. It would have done you good to grow up with us, away from that dusty old house full of rules and punishments and things that were not to be touched. I watched through the window, you know. I saw what she did-"

"Stop now," Hecate said, and the Puck let her hair go and backed away a step or two, with a face full of what looked like genuine sadness.

"And now, witchling, look what has become of you. Locked away in another prison and subject to another old woman who tells you what to do."

"Ada is nothing like my grandmother was," Hecate said sharply, "and I follow her orders because I want to, not because I must."

"But does she love you as I do?"

"As you do? No."

"Ah, then does she love you at all, witchling?"

"I haven't come to talk of love," Hecate said. "I've come to ask a favour."

"Of course you have," the Puck said sullenly. "Why should I think my old playmate would want to see me for my own sweet sake?" He made a moue at her. "Well, here I am. What will you of me?"

"It's the plant you gave me," Hecate said. "I've run out. I made it last as long as I could, but-" She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. "Nothing in this world lasts forever."

"As we have already discussed," said the Puck. The patch of sky above the clearing was growing very dark, which made Hecate wonder, with a nervous twist to her insides, just how long the two of them had been here together. It was easy to lose track of time when dealing with the Puck and his kind, and she had promised to be back by moonrise.

"Will you fetch some more for me, Robin?" She made her voice as gentle and respectful as she could. "We truly do need it for our spells, and it's not to be found this side of the veil, but on your side..."

"It grows wild underfoot," the Puck said in a musing tone. "Yes. And what will you give me if I do, witchling?"

"Last time you didn't ask for anything," Hecate said.

"That was last time," said the Puck. He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Perhaps a lock of your hair, as a remembrance when we are apart?"

"Not that," said Hecate, shuddering inwardly at the idea of what the Puck would be able to do with a lock of a witch's hair in his possession. The possibilities started with her being driven mad, and got worse from there.

"Perhaps you might come into my realm then, only for an hour, so I may show you all its wonders?" His eyes glittered in a way that was both terrifying and alluring, and she had a sudden flash of not-quite memory from other meetings they had had, when she was six and eight and fourteen and twenty and thirty. There were things in it that she knew by instinct were best not to recall completely. She shook her head.

"Not that either."

"Then a bit of your magic. You have more than you can ever use, witchling, more than so many of the witches I have met since ever witches were. Just a taste, just a drop, and I will give you enough of the plant you seek for another ten summers or more."

Hecate thought about it, turning the idea over in her mind and looking for any possible way it could go wrong. The most dangerous moment of dealing with one of the fair folk was when you were trying to make a deal with it, she knew, and if there were a loophole... But she could think of none.

"All right," she said. "Only bring me the plant first, and when I have it in my hand, then I'll give you what you wish."

"I shall go like a bird on the wing," the Puck said, and making a low, courtly bow, he disappeared, leaving Hecate alone and shaking. It was full dark now, which meant at least midnight if not later at this time of year, and she had left the castle before six o'clock. She wondered if she dared conjure a light, and decided that if the Puck were inviting her to give over some of her magic, he could not be offended by her working a bit on her own. Raising her arms, she summoned a thousand tiny, glimmering lights that floated in the trees and cast a greenish glow over the clearing. It was more frivolous than her usual style, but it calmed her, and she was able to wait patiently for the few moments before the Puck returned, with a bouquet of strange silvery leaves and stalks cradled in his arms.

"Here they are, my witchling, at your command. May I have your leave to lay them inside the circle?"

"Only that and no more," Hecate said again, and the Puck laid his burden at her feet and straightened up, smiling his crooked smile.

"And now for my reward," he said. "You must take my hand. You have done it before, when you were a child."

"I remember," Hecate said. She hadn't been frightened then, but she had not really understood who or what her playmate was, either. When she had first met him, they had been the same size and she had thought him another child. Now the top of his head came just past her waist when they were both standing, but she felt small in his presence. It was not a feeling she was used to, or one she enjoyed, and she did not want to touch him at all.

 _Ada_ , she thought. Ada was back at the castle awaiting her return. She had promised Ada, and she had promised the Puck too, and if she had learnt one thing from her grandmother, it was never to break a promise.

She put her hand out, and the Puck's hand curled round it, as thin and limber and strangely warm as it always had been.

"Ah-" he said, and turned his face up to hers, with a real smile this time. "It is just the same."

"Yes," Hecate said, and closing her eyes, she concentrated on her magic, visualising it, gathering it together like a ball at the centre of her body. She separated the amount she wanted to give to him-only a very little, so little it would regenerate on its own, given time-and with a sudden intense effort, she pushed it toward the place where their palms were clasped. There was a flash, and for an instant the Puck's whole hand seemed illuminated from within, as if he had grasped a live wire. Then it faded, and she swiftly detached herself and pulled back, into the circle of safety.

"Oh witchling," he said dreamily, "that is a great gift indeed, and I thank you."

"You're welcome," Hecate said. She felt inside herself for her magic, making sure it was still in place, and breathed a sigh of relief when she found it was. "And I thank you for what you have given me. And now I really must be going."

"Back to the old woman," the Puck said. "The one who does not love you as I do."

"Back to my friend," Hecate said firmly.

"I was once your friend." He shot her a veiled glance that she could not quite work out. "Am I not still?"

If Hecate had thought in advance about how to answer that question, she would not have known what to say, but at the spur of the moment, she found the words were already there in her mouth.

"When we meet in the wood on Midsummer Eve," she said, and the Puck laughed.

"That will do well enough, witchling," he said. "Go on. Well met, and safe travels. Who knows? Perhaps when we meet again, you shall be an old woman too." And with that, he pulled aside another curtain of nothing and vanished behind it, this time for good.


End file.
